The Best of 2016

This year seems to have just flown by so quickly and I honestly can’t believe that we’re a few hours away from 2017! I know everyone is hating on 2016 for so many reasons and so glad for it to be over, but honestly, it was one of the best years we’ve had in a while. We managed to do so much stuff, and I tried so hard to try and get out and about more, no matter the weather (which was always one of my downsides – if there was a hint of a cloud in the sky, my day would be ruined and I wouldn’t want to leave the house haha). I always love looking at back at my old yearly recaps, so I had to do another one this year. You can see all my past yearly recaps here.

TRAVEL

2016 was a pretty goood year for travelling. We ticked off 3 new countries (Switzerland, Croatia and Montenegro) as it’s been my goal for the past few years to visit at least 2 new countries each year, and we also visited France too. We also took quite a few trips exploring more of the UK again in the caravan which I always love. It’s so nice to just take a long weekend every few months to just get out and explore. We visited Norfolk, Devon and Cornwall and took a few day trips too!

Shane bought me a scratch map for my birthday and I can’t wait to get scratching more of it off! We’ve already got our first trip booked for next year, and obviously, my bucket list of countries is huge, so we’ll see where we end up next year!

Some of my favourite travel posts of the year were:

Exploring Devon Beaches / Annecy Old Town / Mont Blanc & Aiguille du Midi / Walking Dubrovnik’s Old City Walls / Kotor’s Old City Walls

FOOD

I managed to share quite a few recipes this year! I always love a good recipe post, mostly so I can look back and think of ideas to eat haha! I started trying to cook a lot more as we got into a really bad habit of ordering takeaways every night instead of actually cooking dinner. I changed my hours at the end of last year to finish earlier, so it’s made it so much easier to be able to cook dinner each night. We still get at least 1 takeaway each week, though we’re still trying to cut down.

Some of my favourite food posts of the year were:

Gluten & Dairy Free Carrot Cake / Fish Tacos with Pineapple Chilli Sauce / Bacon & Rainbow Chard Quiche / Elderflower Cordial / Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

UK ADVENTURES

We took so many day trips throughout the UK this year. We’re so lucky to live so close to so many major cities in the UK which makes everywhere so accessible to us. We visited London, Cambridge, Liverpool and so many other places throughout the UK. Everyone is always amazed that we’re quite happy to travel about 3 hours each way for a day trip, but we honestly don’t mind.

Some of my favourite trips in the UK this year have been:

Visiting Kew Botanic Gardens in the spring / Exploring Camden Locks / Albert Docks in Liverpool / Walton-on-the-Naze beach / Dunwich Heath / PYO Pumpkins

LIFE

Nothing major happened in the life department. We got some bad news in January about Toffee (our cat) who got diagnosed with heart failure. The vet said that we caught it super early so he’s been on medication ever since and he’s doing pretty well (he’s going through a bit of a bad patch now though, so keep him in your thoughts). We also had to say goodbye to our chickens! Lenny, who we had for over 8 years (I know right?!), passed away back in June. Her friend Bella was lost without her, so someone nearby took her in so she’s got a whole load of new chicken friends now. We also got a little kitten in March and we love her so much! We’ve also wanted a campervan for a few years, so at the beginning of the summer we bought a van to convert into our own little campervan! I also really want a tattoo, so I’m hoping that 2017 will see me be brave and actually get one!

Some of my favourite life posts this year have been:

Toffee / Meet Keeko / Trying out Temporary Tattoos / DIY Plantpot Pizza oven / We bought a Van

2017

As for 2017 we don’t really have much planned. I’m not really one to set myself resolutions and I’m not really into the whole ‘New Year’ thing, but we’ll see what happens. Hopefully we get to tick off more countries and complete our campervan conversion. I’ve also really been getting into the gym the past few months (hence the lack of blog posts around here lately – I just don’t have the time anymore ahah) and the past month I’ve really gotten into yoga, so I definitely want to keep that up and get fit and healthy.

Don’t forget you can follow along on instagram @aprileveryday

How was your 2016? Have you got much planned for 2017?

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